Gail Carriger has written a lovely steam punk series called the Parasol Protectorate starring Alexia Tarabotti (aka Lady Maccon) a soulless creature, literally she doesn’t have a soul. The fourth book in the series is Heartless, so if you haven’t read the first three books I suggest discontinuing your reading on this blog site and picking up the first book, Soulless. You can also read my reviews for the other three books here.
The Parasol Protectorate series centers on Alexia Tarabotti who is lacking a soul, thus she is unaffected by the supernatural world of werewolves and vampires as much as someone who is best friends with a vampire and married to a werewolf can be unaffected. It is perhaps more accurate to state she uneffects the supernatural, taking away their super abilities with a touch. Alexia becomes more and more involved in the supernatural world saving her husband a few times, befriending a tinkering French woman who goes a bit crazy, and saving herself and her unborn child a time or two. She is a strong female character fairly unruffled by the many strange things in her life, seeing a course of action she goes forward in spite of the many obstacles thrown at her.
In Heartless, Alexia is a full nine months pregnant with the infant inconvenience when a ghost appears out of nowhere and seemingly tethered to nothing with the all important message that the queen is in danger. Being intimately associated with The Queen of England Alexia assumes that that dear lady’s life is in danger and sets out to uncover the assassination plot and save the day. Hindered by the machinations of a crazy french woman and fighting out assassination plots against her person more than once, Alexia does just that. She is helped by the lovely Ivy reveals a depth of character not seen before. The question becomes whether Alexia can wrap all of her loose threads, end the assassination attempts on herself and the queen before the infant inconvenience arrives.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the continuing tales of Alexia. She is perpetually a strong, witty, independent thinker (except her prejudice against woman voting). She continually solves life’s little problems with more than a bit of brains and intrigue. She keeps up well and is not over shadowed by her alpha male husband and seems to effortlessly float through the Victorian society without much ado, but never no ado. I think this book continued well in the vein of strong writing that Carriger has exemplified time and again and I eagerly await the conclusion of the series in Timeless.
Read another review here.
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